Barickman discusses veto session

Saturday

Dec 22, 2012 at 1:43 PMDec 22, 2012 at 1:44 PM

Cynthia Grau

Jason Barickman was visiting Pontiac Thursday and stopped by the Daily Leader to address some issues with the way the fall veto session went for legislators.A big question weighing heavily on the minds of Livingston County residents is about how the house didn't have a vote to possibly veto Gov. Pat Quinn's funding cuts to prisons."Speaker (Mike) Madigan did not call that bill for a vote," he simply stated. Barickman said many legislators have become frustrated with the single-party government that runs the state at this point in time."Many people, myself included, have criticized two things, one, that government for which there is single party control often results in bad decisions, and that's what we have in Illinois. One party controls the governor's office, the legislature and the courts, quite frankly," he said. "The other thing that many of us have said is that under our current constitution, there is too much power in the hands of one person, that person being Speaker Mike Madigan. When we say that, we're talking about the fact that he controls what is voted on and when it's voted on. Those are his decisions and so on this question of whether to override the governor, speaker Madigan decided that we wouldn't even have a public debate or take a vote on the issue. My feeling has always been that the votes existed within the General Assembly to override the governor, but we had to have the opportunity and we weren't presented with it."He expanded on the fact that the people opposed to the state facility closures didn't even get a chance to talk about it during the session."There is definitely a feeling that when this type of control is exerted, that it seems to be almost anti-democratic because most people in the state feel like, whatever the issue of the day is, you're going to win some and you're going to lose some, but so long as you have the opportunity to be heard, it makes the sting of losing a little bit less because you feel like you had your day up there. Again, on this issue, we thought we had the votes, but we weren't even allowed the opportunity. It's extremely frustrating," Barickman stated. "(Dwight) Mayor (Bill) Wilkey was in Springfield quite frequently through the spring session and at other times and he was there on one of the days where the frustration kind of boiled over. He saw it and asked me about it and unfortunately this is too often the way things are handled in Springfield. Single party and single person control resulting in very frustrated chamber and frustrated group of individuals trying to represent their districts."Barickman said that, even though the status of Dwight Correctional Center and the other facilities slated for closure are very important, there were other issues that were skipped over during the fall session."Dwight is not the only important issue that our state government is failing to address. Our state government has a backlog of $8 billion in bills. We're all in Springfield, it would seem like an opportune time to talk about how we're going to remedy that situation, but again, when the speaker says, 'We're adjourned,' then we're adjourned and we can all leave and have our water cooler conversations about how frustrating the process is and how we think that we ought to be dealing with a whole number of issues. At the end of the day, he calls those shots," he said.Barickman continued, "The budget is a huge issue and pension reform is a component of the budget, as is Medicaid reform. We work collectively for five months, between January and May, on the budget. When we adjourned in May, clearly the work on the budget was not done and to me every time we step foot in Springfield, we ought to be discussing how we reign in spending and try to pay down these bills. $8 billion is a huge number, but it affects every community throughout Illinois. Here in Pontiac, we have many, many, many providers and businesses that are relying on dollars coming from Springfield, dollars that are already owed for services that have already been performed, sometimes over a year ago, yet the providers have not been paid for that. Again, these are absolutely issues we should be taking up in Springfield, but unfortunately, we're not at the moment." One more major talking point in congress?"Concealed-carry. The courts have decided that Illinois' current restrictions on guns are too severe and violate the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution and as a result, they have said unless the Illinois legislature crafts a new law that it's not violating the second amendment, there will be no regulations of guns in our state. I suspect we will see the form of two bills come forward. One form will be a bill that is supported by strong second amendment supporters, such as myself. The other will be a bill that has potentially unconstitutional regulations in it again and it will be a piece of legislation supported by gun control advocates, such as Gov. Quinn and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel. This is an extremely important debate for our state and it's clearly an opportunity for Illinois to get in line with the other 49 states and pass concealed-carry," Barickman said.Some hate to use the tragic school shooting in Connecticut a week ago as an example or as a conversation point when it comes to gun control, but that instance will especially come into play since it was such a recent event."Obviously, those tragic events are going to play into the debate that we have and what I continue to remind my colleagues and those who discuss this issue with me is that I think we have seen and there's ample evidence that continued regulation of guns is not making us safer. It's not the law-abiding citizens who are causing many of these horrific acts," Barickman stated, adding, "I will say that the governor has continually cut funding to places like community mental health services and that is an area that I think we should absolutely be focusing our efforts on and that's an opportunity for the governor to hopefully learn the misguided ways of his past and there's an opportunity to restore some of those funds for those services and truly help some of our mentally ill."Barickman will be back in session with the General Assembly Jan. 3, before being sworn in as senator for the 53rd district on Jan. 9.